


Road Work?

by Fandomcraziness22



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Gen, Silliness Ensues, the boys learn about vine, vine references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27407377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandomcraziness22/pseuds/Fandomcraziness22
Summary: Julie enjoys (somewhat) teaching the boys about modern slang. But Flynn is the master, so when she yeets a paper, the boys are confused. Vine references abound.Written for JATP Week Day 4: write a fic including pop culture/memes
Comments: 13
Kudos: 148
Collections: JATP Appreciation Week





	Road Work?

Julie decided that the new advancement in ghost powers was fun _most_ of the time. The boys could now control who saw them and could touch them, which was great because it meant they could finally meet Flynn properly, which also lead to them meeting Carlos and Ray and the new set-up of the boys living in the studio. Julie loved coming home after school and hanging out with the guys. Her bandmates were funny, and they easily accepted her friends and family into their mix.

What was not always fun, however, was attempting to explain all the pop culture things they had missed in the twenty five years of being dead. Julie hadn’t realized just how much had happened in twenty-five years, and with the way technology had increased so rapidly, she was often at a loss of how to explain certain things. She relied on her dad to come up with good comparisons that the boys would understand, but sometimes her humor escaped her dad (you kids with your weird expressions, he would always say), and she was left with Flynn for explanations. 

This led her to today’s discovery, the magic and absurdity of Vine references.

Flynn was on one end of the couch, with Luke’s legs stretched over her as he worked on writing lyrics to a new song. Julie sat across from them, watching her best friend and her bandmate (crush) snipe at each other as they always did. Alex was twirling a drumstick to Julie’s left, and Reggie sat on the floor in front of her. They were all just chilling, having finished practice for the day. Luke had wanted to write something down quick, which they all knew meant at least two solid hours of hanging out.

Luke ripped the piece of paper from his notebook and crumpled it up. “This isn’t working,” he groaned.

“The almighty Luke is struggling with words? What has happened to the world?” Flynn teased the boy, poking his leg.

Luke rolled his eyes and poked her right back. “Hey, pipe down. I don’t see you creating new songs for our band.”

Flynn grinned. “That’s not my job, that’s yours. I do pretty much all the heavy lifting for this band, so you would do well to keep up your work ethic.”

“Hey!” Reggie exclaimed from his spot. “You don’t do any lifting around here! We’re the ones that have to poof in with our instruments.”

Alex sighed and rolled his eyes at his friend. Sometimes, he wondered why he had hung out with them as long as he had.

“Yeah, but I thought your instruments were easy?” Julie challenged her bandmate.

“They are, but—” Reggie attempted to defend himself, but Luke chimed in. “But nothing. Flynn doesn’t do squat during our performances. She gets to stand there and watch us do the hard work. So if anything, I think it’s you who should be picking up the slack.”

Flynn rolled her eyes at Luke. “I don’t do anything? I’ll have you know you wouldn’t have the success you do if it wasn’t for your manager, right here." She points to herself and continues. "I post to social media and update the people with new content constantly! And I helped you book your agent and get all the good gigs!”

Julie giggled as her friends continued to argue good-naturedly. She was so glad Flynn felt included with her band.

“Are you gonna save that one, or are you gonna throw it?” Flynn asked Luke a few minutes later.

“Throw it, I’ll remember anything that ends up being important and write it down again later.”

Flynn took the paper and crumpled it further into a ball, looked for the trash can standing in the corner, and yelled “Yeet!” as she threw the paper. It sailed perfectly into the trash, and she fist pumped in congratulations to herself.

“What did you just say?” Alex was the first to respond.

“I yeeted the paper! Did you see that basket? Nothing but net!” Flynn exclaimed.

“Is it yeeted or yote?” Julie piped up. She loved having this debate with her classmates. Different people in their grade had varying opinions on the past tense of the word.

“Yeeted, obviously,” Flynn said. “Yote is too weird. ‘She yeeted it’ sounds way better than ‘she yote it.’ Then wouldn’t it have to be ‘yoted?’ ‘She yoted it?’ See, yeeted just makes more sense.”

“Are you guys speaking English right now?” Luke asked, and the girls looked around to see all three ghosts with confused expression on their faces. Reggie looked interested, while Alex just looked a little annoyed. He had been learning more from Willie, so he had more experience with the modern slang, but this was a new one.

“Oh my goodness, they don’t know about yeet!” Flynn yelled. She turned to Julie. “Time to break out the Vine comps!”

“Oh no,” Julie moaned. “We’ll never hear the end of them!”

“But it’s so important to understand the Vine references! I mean, come one Jules! ‘Road work ahead?’ They don’t know the correct response!”

“Why are we talking about road work?” Reggie asked.

Flynn shoved Luke’s legs off of her (her legs were starting to fall asleep anyways, who knew ghosts could be so heavy?) and ran to her backpack to grab her laptop.

Julie smiled. “I feel like Reggie is the epitome of ‘road work ahead’ so I guess he better understand what’s going on.”

“You’re so right, Julie.” Flynn agreed as she opened up youtube.

“Is someone going to explain what’s going on?” Luke asked.

“Oh! And you know the one with the three boys wrapped in their blankets? And they pop out one by one? That’s what being in a band with them feels like,” Julie added, now thinking of which vines represented her friends.

Flynn laughed. “I think Alex is the 'Why? Why?' one,” she said, adding an extra breathy sound as the guy in the video did.

Julie giggled. “Yes, totally!”

“Which one is Luke?” Flynn asked.

“Hmm,” Julie mused for a minute. She snapped her fingers and said, “I got it! He’s the ‘America explain!’ one.”

“So I am confusion,” Flynn laughed, restarting the reference.

“SO AM I! Can someone please explain what is going on?” Luke exclaimed.

“Dude, let them have their fun,” Alex tries to calm his friend down. He’s more used to this, feeling confused about modern slang and technology. But Luke gets impatient at the best of times. And he seemed to be slightly off since his mini writing session hadn’t gone his way.

“Sorry Luke,” both girls muttered. Flynn decided to explain first.

“Vine was an app where you made short videos, like only seven second long videos. So most of them are really funny. And then when they shut the app down, people made compilations of famous Vines and put them on youtube, so anyone can watch them now. Most people who understand Vine references know the popular ones, and it’s fun to quote them back and forth to each other.”

Julie had never been more thankful for her friend than in that moment. She struggled to explain her humor, so having Flynn around who was much more eloquent (how did that work with Julie being the songwriter? She would always wonder that) than Julie helped them often.

“Yeet first, Flynn.” Julie advised her friend, and gestured to the boys to join them around Flynn’s laptop.

Two hours later the boys had officially been educated on the important Vines. Julie had laughed till her sides ached, and Luke’s bad mood has disappeared completely. His arms were wrapped around Julie, holding her upright as she continued laughing. Reggie was in stiches on the floor, and kept randomly repeating “Road work ahead?” to himself. Alex was smiling and thinking up ways to use the references when he met up with Willie the next day. And Flynn was content to watch her friends crack each other up with each new reference.

It became a game to call out a Vine as a goodbye to Julie in the mornings and Flynn when she had to go home in the afternoons. One of the boys would start a reference, and everyone would finish it together.

“Wait, but what’s TikTok?” Reggie asked one week. “When I search Vine comps on the youtube, it sometimes recommends TikTok comps?”

Julie facepalmed but smiled all the same. “Oh boy, here we go again.”


End file.
